{"id":8433,"date":"2012-12-12T10:23:34","date_gmt":"2012-12-12T15:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=8433"},"modified":"2012-12-12T10:23:34","modified_gmt":"2012-12-12T15:23:34","slug":"daily-album-review-26-grand-scale-music-and-performances-from-esa-pekka-salonen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/12\/12\/daily-album-review-26-grand-scale-music-and-performances-from-esa-pekka-salonen\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily album review 26: Grand-scale music and performances from Esa-Pekka Salonen"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Finnish conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen has found a compelling middle ground in his creative work between tonality and atonality, structure and atmosphere. Two great examples are on display in a new album featuring violinist Leila Josefowicz.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Deutsche Grammophon has released a short disc — 49 minutes in total — that packs an outsize musical punch. On it are Salonen’s 2009 four-movement Violin Concerto<\/em> and 2010 orchestral tone poem Nyx<\/em>, written a year later.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The concerto is dispatched with implacable verve by the indomitable Leila Josefowicz, who we have been lucky enough to witness live, thanks to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.<\/p>\n

Salonen himself conducts the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra on the album.<\/p>\n

The most striking aspect about Salonen’s compositions is how they can seamlessly go from intimate to explosive and back again in a space of just a few minutes.<\/p>\n

The music in the Violin Concerto<\/em> sits teetering precariously over a chasm of gaudiness — something like the deliberately dramatic pounding of an epic Hollywood soundtrack. Even the final movement, Adieu, bursts with bombnastic instrumental voices and timpani.<\/p>\n

The dynamic sweep sounds more organic in Nyx<\/em>, thanks to its longer scope and more introverted feel (the title comes from the Ancient Greek goddess of night).<\/p>\n

Here is new music for those who value a symphony orchestra as well as an overall sense of order and structure in their listening.<\/p>\n

You’ll find all the album details here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here is Salonen explaining Nyx<\/em> a bit for the Los Angeles Philharmonic (where he is conductor laureate). They performed the piece last weekend:<\/p>\n